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This is a useful nuts-and-bolts discussion of the academic routine, but I'd disagree with this conclusion: > "It’s your company. Mathematicians each run a smal

This is a useful nuts-and-bolts discussion of the academic routine, but I'd disagree with this conclusion: > "It’s your company. Mathematicians each run a small business. We work in malls called math departments. Your company sells theorems. Your advisor is a free consultant for your company, not your boss, not your employee. Ultimately YOU are responsible for the success of your company..." The adoption of corporate entrepreneur model of academic research is one of the worst, if not the worst, things about the current American academic system. Why? First of all, who is funding this 'company'? Not you, in all likelihood - it's the tax-paying public who finances the majority of the funding train that keeps academic institutions afloat. What does the public expect in return, ideally? Well, how about producing highly skilled teachers, that seems important in a technological society, where mathematical skills are in general critically important. Hence, a critical part of the PhD student's job (and the professor's) is the instruction of the undergraduate population. This article doesn't even mention the importance of that role. Secondly, corporate research is highly secretive and non-collaborative in nature, as the goal is creation of intellectual property that can be sold on for a profit. This attitude is entirely at odds with the most successful acadamic model for making scientific progress, i.e. collaboration and rapid sharing of results. If you spend your time in academia worrying about people stealing your work and not trusting anyone, it's going to be a fairly miserable experience. My advice is to toss the corporate enterpreneur model in the garbage bin.

huitzitziltzin 4y ago
The highlighted sentence is a metaphor and it’s the right one. You are selling in your academic career. You are selling results, papers, conference presentations, whatever counts among your peers in your field. You will not have a career as an academic in your field unless you can sell your work to your peers in the field. No one cares about your teaching, certainly not of undergrads (exceptions exist at some liberal arts colleges). Your department and your dean care about your research. That’s it. You have to sell it both to get it published and to get it cited. Do that and you’ll be fine. Don’t and you won’t have a career in a university.
- photochemsyn 4y ago
  What you say is true... but that's also why American academics is widely viewed as corrupt and unproductive, ridden with fraudulent con artists, and falling into the same kind of failure mode seen in, for example, Soviet science under the regime of Lysenko. Now if you wanted to rise to a position of academic power under the likes of Lysenko, you'd want to follow this careerist path, you'd want to observe Lysenko, sing the song that Lysenko wanted to hear, and you'd be rewarded appropriately. That's the way of authoritarian bureaucratic institutionalism, not the way of high-quality science. It also doesn't really matter whether the structure is 'capitalist' or 'socialist', it's all about who sits at the top of the hierarchy in such systems. Crushing independent thought is what they have in common.
  - arcanus 4y ago
    > What you say is true... but that's also why American academics is widely viewed as corrupt and unproductive, ridden with fraudulent con artists, and falling into the same kind of failure mode seen in, for example, Soviet science under the regime of Lysenko. Citation needed. I'm a former academic, and seldom a defender, and I entirely dispute this statement. American academia is widely considered the international leader by any ranking I'm aware of. For some data, consider the rankings of international universities: https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/rankings https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/ra... Or, by largest concentration of highly cited researchers: https://clarivate.com/blog/highly-cited-researchers-2021-how-nations-and-institutions-foster-exceptional-performance/ https://clarivate.com/blog/highly-cited-researchers-2021-how... Bottom line: the American academy isn't perfect, but it's far from fraudulent, as the parent alleged.
    - photochemsyn 4y ago
      The reluctance of the American academic bureaucracy to admit to the prevalence of fraud in academic research is understandable, but there are many examples. Some of the recent notables are the serotonin hypothesis of depression, and aspects of the amyloid theory of Alzheimer's. Data falsification is not uncommon, and it's often done for obvious reasons - a graduate student may want that positive result that finishes off their PhD work and gets them a needed publication, a professor may want to support their past work with new data and results, an academic startup may want to prop up their latest drug development results to draw in investors and big corporations, etc. The reason academic institutions don't want to talk about it is the same reason that religious institutions don't want to talk about child abuse - it makes a mockery of their whole enterprise. With the former, it's the search for truth via the scientific process, and with the later it's upholding moral standards and guiding society. Both institutions cover up such things in order to preserve their public image - which, of course, allows such behaviors to persist. Note also that the corporatization of research, i.e. the focus on generating lucrative patents and the resulting emphasis on keeping raw data secret, tends to amplify opportunities for fraud.
yodsanklai 4y ago
> The adoption of corporate entrepreneur model of academic research is one of the worst, if not the worst, things about the current American academic system. Why? That's not how I read the paragraph you quoted. I think the point is that you're basically working for yourself when you do a PhD, not for your boss. You're given carte blanche for a few years, and it's your responsibility to produce value out of this time. The value here isn't measured in money but in publications.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
conformist 4y ago
It can, at the same time, be correct as an (individual-level) descriptive statement but counterproductive as a (system-level) normative statement. As in, it's probably realistically good advice to a PhD student, because it reflects the state of affairs, but it's possibly unfortunate that that is the case.
mmmmpancakes 4y ago
You misinterpret the spirit of the quote. What it means is the following. > Having very good research is a necessary condition to succeed in academia, but it is not sufficient. The reason why this is emphasized to starting academics is that many naively believe the system is purely meritocratic and that their work will speak for itself. This is borne out of an ignorance of how fundamentally important it is to communicate the importance of your work to others. The reality is that there is a total glut of research. Even the best do not have time to sift through all recent results in their broader field. Even if they scan abstracts, understanding the true value of results is a hard process that takes time. The most effective way to understand value of research is to interrogate the researcher directly (e.g., in a seminar talk). Thus, self-advertisement through seminar talks and other modes is crucial to getting your message out. Otherwise you will wilt into obscurity. I can assure you, the space for some sort of corporate style huckster selling poor research with flashy branding in pure math is very small. This stuff is not easy to fake.
LudwigNagasena 4y ago
> Well, how about producing highly skilled teachers, that seems important in a technological society, where mathematical skills are in general critically important. Hence, a critical part of the PhD student's job (and the professor's) is the instruction of the undergraduate population. This article doesn't even mention the importance of that role. That makes zero sense. If you want to make teachers and lecturers, why not create the path of a pedagogy bootcamp or a MSc if you like fancy titles and wasting time? Why would you push people through PhDs? PhDs spend 3-5 years mastering a single narrow domain area, it has absolutely zero utility wrt teaching unless we are talking about graduate-level courses that PhD students take…
sgregnt 4y ago
If an adviser is a free consultant what is his incentive to provide this consultation?
patrick451 4y ago
> Well, how about producing highly skilled teachers, that seems important in a technological society, where mathematical skills are in general critically important. Hence, a critical part of the PhD student's job (and the professor's) is the instruction of the undergraduate population. This article doesn't even mention the importance of that role. They don't mention it because it's unimportant. Your thesis committee cares about your research and that's it. If your advisor is well funded, you can easily finish a stem PhD and never teach a single class. If you do have to teach, getting perfect feedback or terrible feedback from student evaluations has zero bearing on whether you earn a PhD.

huitzitziltzin 4y ago

The highlighted sentence is a metaphor and it’s the right one. You are selling in your academic career. You are selling results, papers, conference presentations, whatever counts among your peers in your field. You will not have a career as an academic in your field unless you can sell your work to your peers in the field. No one cares about your teaching, certainly not of undergrads (exceptions exist at some liberal arts colleges). Your department and your dean care about your research. That’s it. You have to sell it both to get it published and to get it cited. Do that and you’ll be fine. Don’t and you won’t have a career in a university.

photochemsyn 4y ago
What you say is true... but that's also why American academics is widely viewed as corrupt and unproductive, ridden with fraudulent con artists, and falling into the same kind of failure mode seen in, for example, Soviet science under the regime of Lysenko. Now if you wanted to rise to a position of academic power under the likes of Lysenko, you'd want to follow this careerist path, you'd want to observe Lysenko, sing the song that Lysenko wanted to hear, and you'd be rewarded appropriately. That's the way of authoritarian bureaucratic institutionalism, not the way of high-quality science. It also doesn't really matter whether the structure is 'capitalist' or 'socialist', it's all about who sits at the top of the hierarchy in such systems. Crushing independent thought is what they have in common.
- arcanus 4y ago
  > What you say is true... but that's also why American academics is widely viewed as corrupt and unproductive, ridden with fraudulent con artists, and falling into the same kind of failure mode seen in, for example, Soviet science under the regime of Lysenko. Citation needed. I'm a former academic, and seldom a defender, and I entirely dispute this statement. American academia is widely considered the international leader by any ranking I'm aware of. For some data, consider the rankings of international universities: https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/rankings https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/ra... Or, by largest concentration of highly cited researchers: https://clarivate.com/blog/highly-cited-researchers-2021-how-nations-and-institutions-foster-exceptional-performance/ https://clarivate.com/blog/highly-cited-researchers-2021-how... Bottom line: the American academy isn't perfect, but it's far from fraudulent, as the parent alleged.
  - photochemsyn 4y ago
    The reluctance of the American academic bureaucracy to admit to the prevalence of fraud in academic research is understandable, but there are many examples. Some of the recent notables are the serotonin hypothesis of depression, and aspects of the amyloid theory of Alzheimer's. Data falsification is not uncommon, and it's often done for obvious reasons - a graduate student may want that positive result that finishes off their PhD work and gets them a needed publication, a professor may want to support their past work with new data and results, an academic startup may want to prop up their latest drug development results to draw in investors and big corporations, etc. The reason academic institutions don't want to talk about it is the same reason that religious institutions don't want to talk about child abuse - it makes a mockery of their whole enterprise. With the former, it's the search for truth via the scientific process, and with the later it's upholding moral standards and guiding society. Both institutions cover up such things in order to preserve their public image - which, of course, allows such behaviors to persist. Note also that the corporatization of research, i.e. the focus on generating lucrative patents and the resulting emphasis on keeping raw data secret, tends to amplify opportunities for fraud.

yodsanklai 4y ago

> The adoption of corporate entrepreneur model of academic research is one of the worst, if not the worst, things about the current American academic system. Why? That's not how I read the paragraph you quoted. I think the point is that you're basically working for yourself when you do a PhD, not for your boss. You're given carte blanche for a few years, and it's your responsibility to produce value out of this time. The value here isn't measured in money but in publications.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

conformist 4y ago

It can, at the same time, be correct as an (individual-level) descriptive statement but counterproductive as a (system-level) normative statement. As in, it's probably realistically good advice to a PhD student, because it reflects the state of affairs, but it's possibly unfortunate that that is the case.

mmmmpancakes 4y ago

You misinterpret the spirit of the quote. What it means is the following. > Having very good research is a necessary condition to succeed in academia, but it is not sufficient. The reason why this is emphasized to starting academics is that many naively believe the system is purely meritocratic and that their work will speak for itself. This is borne out of an ignorance of how fundamentally important it is to communicate the importance of your work to others. The reality is that there is a total glut of research. Even the best do not have time to sift through all recent results in their broader field. Even if they scan abstracts, understanding the true value of results is a hard process that takes time. The most effective way to understand value of research is to interrogate the researcher directly (e.g., in a seminar talk). Thus, self-advertisement through seminar talks and other modes is crucial to getting your message out. Otherwise you will wilt into obscurity. I can assure you, the space for some sort of corporate style huckster selling poor research with flashy branding in pure math is very small. This stuff is not easy to fake.

LudwigNagasena 4y ago

> Well, how about producing highly skilled teachers, that seems important in a technological society, where mathematical skills are in general critically important. Hence, a critical part of the PhD student's job (and the professor's) is the instruction of the undergraduate population. This article doesn't even mention the importance of that role. That makes zero sense. If you want to make teachers and lecturers, why not create the path of a pedagogy bootcamp or a MSc if you like fancy titles and wasting time? Why would you push people through PhDs? PhDs spend 3-5 years mastering a single narrow domain area, it has absolutely zero utility wrt teaching unless we are talking about graduate-level courses that PhD students take…

sgregnt 4y ago

If an adviser is a free consultant what is his incentive to provide this consultation?

patrick451 4y ago

> Well, how about producing highly skilled teachers, that seems important in a technological society, where mathematical skills are in general critically important. Hence, a critical part of the PhD student's job (and the professor's) is the instruction of the undergraduate population. This article doesn't even mention the importance of that role. They don't mention it because it's unimportant. Your thesis committee cares about your research and that's it. If your advisor is well funded, you can easily finish a stem PhD and never teach a single class. If you do have to teach, getting perfect feedback or terrible feedback from student evaluations has zero bearing on whether you earn a PhD.